


Our Last First Gig

by minteafresha



Category: Homestar Runner
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 20:25:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8071531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minteafresha/pseuds/minteafresha
Summary: Coach Z and Bubs recently got together again as the Two-o-Duo and also as boyfriends, and they're back in the music business again. Coach Z has some doubts about himself.





	

It was a cozy late afternoon in autumn. The sun had begun to set on the meager apartment where Bubs lived.

 

An old, loaded cardboard box was shifted from the musty nether quarters of Bubs’ coat closet to the light of day. Coach Z kicked it to the kitchen with short steps and heaved it onto the table with a great big dusty THUD.

  
Bubs winced. “Ooh! Watch it! That’s my good table.” He was stretching for tonight’s gig, leaning to put all his weight on one side, in the nearby living room.

  
“Oh, hehehe,” Coach Z chuckled sheepishly. He then continued to carelessly dust off and crack open the box. “Aww, I can’t beliorve you kept this fancy stuff.” He rummaged through the box, which contained tidbits of costume and unsold albums.

  
He suddenly gasped. “My jaecket!” Coach Z proudly held up the stiff and thick black leather jacket with a little pin that resembled a stoplight on the green light. He laughed and put it on. “It’s still got the same old cherm!”

  
“Good! Ya gonna wear it to the performance?”

  
“Oh! Ey-uh no no no, no.” Coach Z quickly took off the jacket and hung it on a chair. It was such a ratty thing anyway.

  
These weren’t the old days anymore. He only took the box out because it was the first in a long time that he and Bubs had performed together. He had some free time, before they had to head out, to pick up some inspiration from the past. But Coach Z reasoned that it was better to focus on the present and not reminisce so much that he’d start regretting.

  
“What’s the matter? No one even remembers that stuff in the box except you and me.” Bubs said, shifting to a different stretch. His knees cracked. “Phew!”

  
“ _I_ sure do remember! Last time I wore this thing, I was trapped at the bottom of a hay ride!”

  
Bubs chuckled. “Haa, I remember that! Couldn’t get the straws outta your coat for weeks!”

  
Coach Z’s brow furrowed at this. It was not a pleasant experience to laugh about. But at that moment, he noticed a little piece of hay on the seat of the chair next to him, and he picked it up and looked at it. “One of the regular hecklers put me in there, you remember I told you that?” Coach Z dropped the hay on the table and took a seat. He reached behind him to fetch and then hold the jacket in his lap, searching for more leftover grasses.

  
“Oh… I…” Bubs barely uttered in solemn realization. “I forgot…” He propped his leg up on the couch arm in his standing position. “All I remember was when I helped you get all cleaned up… all those buggers were all over you… took all night … talked to keep your mind off of it…” Bubs sighed in his reverie.

  
“I remember that,” Coach Z said, turning the jacket inside-out. His eyes smiled. “You were so sweet, Bubsy.”

  
Bubs blushed. “And uh, you booked that gig at the county fair! I remember… that was really great because usually… usually…”

  
“Hmmm?” Coach Z, absorbed in picking at the jacket and enjoying the sound of Bubs’ voice.

  
“You’d get us a concert at like a janitor convention or some kind of business supply catalog meeting.”

  
“Mmm well, it’s called networking,” Coach Z retorted.

  
“The only rap they care about is bubble wrap,” Bubs replied smartly as he finished stretching. “But I have to give ‘em credit- those supply folks really know how to pop!” He stifled a snicker at his own joke. He then settled himself on the couch in a kneeling position, facing backwards and towards Coach Z in the kitchen. He folded his arms on top of the back of the couch.

  
Coach Z looked up momentarily and caught Bubs staring at him. “What?”

  
Bubs smile widened. “And I’d sometimes wear mismatching shoes because I’d never prepare in time. I thought I could just grab my keytar and be there in fifteen minutes.”

  
Coach Z’s head bobbed contentedly. “And this one time you wore one of my shoes and we spent the whole gig wearing one of each other’s shoe because…”

  
“… because we only brought our own pairs of shoes!” Bubs finished loudly.

  
“Awwwrr,” Coach Z said, and he giggled, for once.

  
“Ahh, I missed your laugh,” Bubs said fondly.

  
This made Coach Z laugh more. All of his worry rushed down and away, and hope and joy came bubbling up like boiling beef stew, good for the soul!

  
In the midst of looking at his partner, Bubs caught sight of the time on the microwave behind Coach Z and noticed they had twenty minutes to get to the stage. “Oh shoot!”

  
“Huh?” Coach Z’s head whipped around and saw the clock. “Oh shooty McToot!”

  
“We better get going,” Bubs said, getting off the couch and grabbing his cool yellow pants, which were hanging on the back of the couch. “Like right now.”

  
Coach Z looked at the jacket and then up at Bubs and then back at the jacket. “I think… I’ll wear the jaecket.”

  
“You will?” Bubs looked up after he pulled the pants snugly under his waist.

  
Coach Z slipped on the jacket and pulled at the collar happily.

  
“Ohh, you look so spiffy,” Bubs admired, slinging the keytar onto his back.

  
“Thank you,” Coach Z said, feeling extra fancy and handsome.

  
Bubs came over and extended the crook of his arm. “Shall we depart?”

  
Coach Z gently looped his arm into Bubs’ and they left the house together.

 

 ---

After several minutes of walking in the hush of purple dusk, arms linked, Coach Z abruptly said, “You don’t think people won’t like my rhymes?”

  
Bubs shook his head and reassured, “We’ve rehearsed, Coach, and your lyrics are ready fo’ the mic!”

  
“Ohhh but remember at the Old Town Decemberween concert ’88, I freestyled about my big nasty-“

  
“Ah-ba-bup!” Bubs interrupted. “Hey! You’re so much better than Old Town now! And I made you take out any nasties in the songs too.”

  
“What if I mess up, Bubs? What if it’s not the music? What if … ? What if…. Eeee…ermmmm… moths ?!”

  
“’Eermmmmmoths?'” Bubs repeated.

  
“Moths come flying out of the jacket!" He fluttered and waved his hands for exaggeration. "Or the curtains!” 

  
Bubs grimaced at Coach Z for a little bit. “Coach.”

  
“Yeah Bubs?”

  
“You’re a doofus.”

  
“You’re a dorgus!” Coach Z exclaimed.

  
Bubs laughed and brought his other arm to hold onto Couch Z’s bicep. Coach Z looked down at his arm and felt all warm and happy, even in the brisk night.

  
Bubs’ laughter subsided and he said, “We are gonna be great, because we’re together...!”

  
At this remark, Coach Z stopped walking and Bubs followed suit. Coach Z wanted to let every part of this moment to sink in. They could hear the noise and chatter of the annual fall festival in the distance, and they saw the bright lights towering over the baseball field. They could barely make out the little shapes of booths and cars and trees. The crickets and frogs blared and burbled their humble songs around them, in the bushes and the grass.

  
Coach Z loosed his arm from Bubs’ arms, and he took Bubs’ hand-nub. He said quietly, “I really think so, too.”

  
Bubs blinked as he found himself in Coach Z’s adoring gaze, and his tight and bright laughter-smile softened.

  
Coach Z leaned down and pressed his face against Bubs’, and kissed him. Bubs and Coach Z locked arms and held on to one another.

  
After a few moments, they pulled their heads apart to look at each other, still keeping their embrace. And they remembered where they were. They saw the lights, which shot through the dark, like white hot stars coming down to meet their dazzled eyes. Their figures idled and soaked in the dim light, which beckoned for them to finish the night. They had about five minutes left.

  
The two of them resumed walking again, which turned into speed-walking, in realizing how late they were. Coach Z laughed in excitement and then started trotting even faster, pulling Bubs along, who tried his best to keep up. “Not so fast, not so fast,” Bubs said, but he didn’t mind, he wanted to run too.

  
It was just like the old days, but better, because they were here now. They knew that everything was going to turn out alright because they were doing it together.


End file.
